Samsung has officially declared war on Apple iPads. In recent years Apple iPads have always destroyed any Samsung tablets. Samsung Galaxy Tab series have never stood a chance against the big boss iPads. They were always behind in screen resolution, image quality and even hardware parts.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 has never been a real competitor to Apple iPad Air. They both came out in the same year, 2013 but iPad Air had a resolution of 1536×2048 which is huge when compared to Tab 3’s poor 1280×800 resolution but king Samsung has had enough of those pesky iPads and decided to go to war against Apple in the tablet market. Samsung has always been ahead of Apple in the smartphone market but now its time to challenge the tablet market as well.

In a relatively short period of time, Samsung has pushed 4 new tablet series! That’s insane. It looks like they are decided to dethrone Apple from the tablet.

Back in October 2013, Samsung released its first tablet series destined to destroy Apple once and for all. This monster is called Galaxy Note 2014 and it comes in 3 versions that most people don’t even know. They simply know this tablet as Galaxy Note 2014… but there’s more to it than just that. First version is called P600 and it’s the weakest, then there’s P601 and P605 which is the undisputed king of all Galaxy Note 2014 series.

Before even considering buying such a tablet you should be aware that with these money you could easily buy a laptop computer which could be a lot more powerful, productive, complex and better than any tablet on the market. There’s nothing you can do on a tablet that you can’t do on a laptop, but there are plenty of things you could do on a laptop but you couldn’t do on a tablet.

There are cheaper tablets (usually Chinese RockChip based tablets) out on the market which are worth the cost such as this or this but their main disadvantage is that their C: partitions are too small and that may cause issues. Samsung doesn’t suffer from this issue because they usually have single C: partition with the entire memory.

Samsung Galaxy Note 2014 P600 Review

Samsung Galaxy Note 2014 Edition P600 has an impressive resolution of 2560×1600 which is way better than Apple iPad, plus it has a 10.1 inch screen size, slightly bigger than iPad Air which is 9.7 inch. Of course when taking the aspect ratio into consideration, it’s not much of a big difference. iPads have always had the good old 4:3 in aspect ratio while Samsung Galaxies have always adopted the wide screen 16:10 and 16:9 aspect ratios.

New to the Galaxy Tab series, Galaxy Note 2014 introduces Samsung’s newest S-Pen which is almost the same as Galaxy Note 3’s S-Pen. Pretty much everything

All Galaxy Note 2014 tablets (P600, P601 & P605) are available in two colors, black & white and they are also available in two storage memory versions as well, 16GB and 32GB. Samsung also claims that there’s a third 64GB version but that’s a lie. The 64GB version is nowhere to be found, in any store, despite the fact that the 2014 series came out all the way back in October 2013, that’s like 7 months ago. They had more than enough time to roll out and ship this 64GB version. 32GB are more than enough for installing plenty of apps and if you need more space for storing music, movies or other things, worry not because all these tablets are equipped with MicroSD slots for memory expansion, up to 64GB.

Galaxy Note 2014 comes with Jelly Bean 4.3 installed but Samsung has already scheduled KitKat 4.4.2 for these tablets. Our advise is to wait for our confirmation (an update to this article) before you update, because most of the times these updates are NOT worth it and destroy your battery life. We have received plenty of emails from people who confirmed that updating just about any Galaxy Android device reduces their battery life. We’ve received reports for Galaxy S2, S3, S4 and even Note 1, Note 3 and a lot of other devices. So please wait for our confirmation and check back for more updates on whether its safe or not to update this device’s OS.

P601 is exactly the same as P600 with the difference of having a 3G SIM card slot. Unfortunately we didn’t had a P601 in our studio for review.

Battery life and even charging time varies among the these tablets, P601 has the weakest battery life, followed by P600 and of course P605 being the king in this area as well as other areas. P600 & P601 charges in 7-8 hours to 100% while P605 charges in 4-5 hours which is way faster. Battery life is also 20-30% longer on P605 vs its weaker P600 & P601 siblings. Why? Find out the answer in the following P605 review.

P600 comes with a USB 2.0 modular charger and manuals. P605 also has a pair of headphones as a bonus. We don’t know if P601’s box contains headphones or not since we didn’t had it for a proper review.

P600 scores 33570 AnTuTu points which is pretty decent. Gaming experience on all Galaxy Note 2014 tablets is a pleasure. Everything works smooth, there’s no lag, everything is fast and flawless despite the huge resolution and multi-tasking is better than ever before. You are now able to open up to 4 apps and split-screen at the same time using your S-Pen.

Samsung Galaxy Note 2014 P605 Review

Samsung Galaxy Note 2014 Edition P605 is the indisputable king. It comes with the monstrous Snapdragon 800, a Quad-core 2.3 GHz Krait 400 CPU, 3GB RAM and Andreno 330 as the supreme GPU beast. P605 beats the living you know what out of Apple iPad Air. Apple will have to work real miracles in order to beat this bad-ass monster. As of now, Apple has sold more iPads than Samsung’s tablets but not for long. Android already reigns like a true master and with the help of these Samsung tablets, it will dethrone Apple in no time since this is just the beginning.

Among other features, P605 also comes with a LTE 150 Mbps DL fast microSIM card slot for extremely fast internet speeds. iPad Air only comes with 100 Mbps LTE. Unfortunately none of these Galaxy Note 2014 tablets come with Radio FM.

As mentioned before, in the P600 review, P605 has a significant better battery life, faster charging time, thanks to Snapdragon 800’s QuickCharge 2.0.

Samsung Galaxy Note 2014 P605 sounds like the perfect tablet but there’s a catch! There’s always has to be a catch! P605 has been developed for the richer Asian countries and it can be easily found in Hong Kong (China), Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia but you will get a huge head-ache trying to find this tablet in European or American stores. You may find the P605 here and there but in the 16GB storage version. Trying to find the P605 32GB version in Europe or America is like looking for the needle in the haystack. If you wanna buy directly from Asia or Australia, beware the Duty and VAT taxes. In two states (Oregon and New Hampshire) of America you won’t have to pay any VAT, just duty taxes. Yes we know, America doesn’t have a VAT tax but it has something called Sales Tax which is exactly the same thing with VAT, but only with a different name.

In short, Galaxy Note 2014 is just like Galaxy Note 3, the phablet. It even has the same wallpaper. The only differences are that Note 3 is USB 3.0, it has 13MP back camera and it has NFC. Everything else is exactly the same and Note 2014 P605 32GB is like a giant version of Note 3 N9005 32GB.

P605 even has the same RAM issue as Note 3 N9005 (the Snapdragon 800 version). In Task Manager, under RAM manager, it only shows 2.35GB RAM compared to P600 which shows 2.71GB RAM.

With JellyBean 4.3 N9005 also shown 2.35GB RAM and after the KitKat 4.4.2 update N9005 shows 2.71GB RAM, same as Exynos version without KitKat. So, as soon as KitKat becomes available for P605 you are strongly advised to update, not only for earning 368MB RAM but also for other benefits. KitKat is a lot more fluent and faster than JellyBean and besides and the battery life is reported to be a lot better on KitKat than on JellyBean. KitKat has already started rolling out for most P605 but since P605 32GB is an Asian destined tablet, (the Hong Kong CSC being the widest spread of them all in the entire world) you will probably have to wait a while until you get the update. Don’t go for the Odin update because this will void your warranty and it’s not worth it. By August 2014, all P605 will be updated to KitKat. As of today, KitKat 4.4.2 for P605 is available for Hong Kong (probably the most important update), Taiwan and for Nordic countries. You may update Over The Air (OTA) only by going to Settings > General > Update. The update is 668MB so it will take a while to download the update.

Our P605 scored 36030 points in AnTuTu Benchmark which was the best result out of all the tablets in this review. That’s why we call it, “king P605”.

Samsung Galaxy Pro series Review

The Samsung Galaxy Pro series have been launched in March 2014. The Pro series is more diverse than the 2014 series. They come with 8.4 inch version called Galaxy Tab Pro, available as T325 (LTE version), T321 (3G version) and of course T320 (SIMless version).

There’s also a 10.1 inch version also called Galaxy Tab Pro which is available as T520 for the SIMless version and T525 for the LTE version. Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 T525 is somewhat similar to Galaxy Note 2014 P605 but it’s worse so don’t go for it. T525 has 2GB RAM memory instead of 3GB (P605). There is also no S-Pen on these tablets. Basically that’s why they are called Tab instead of Note.

Samsung Galaxy Pro series is comes equipped with USB 3.0, unlike Samsung Galaxy Note 2014 series and are more business oriented. They also come with a weird “new and improved” TouchWiz which is quite ugly frankly speaking. The Pro series have also gave up on Samsung’s long used Menu key in favor of a hardware Task switcher key. As usual, there are two camps. Those who cheer this decision and those who curse it. We at Xtrem Digital believe that it was a bad decision because you already had a dedicated key for the Task Manager and that’s physical button at the bottom, in the middle, all you had to do is to press it and keep it press for 2 seconds and voila! Task Manager… so basically now you have 2 buttons which do the same thing. Kind of stupid but whatever!

The most significant out of the Pro series is the Samsung Galaxy Note Pro. They come in 3 versions, P900 for the SIMless version, P901 for the 3G version and P905 for the LTE version which we had for review.

Unlike Galaxy Tab Pro, Galaxy Note Pro has an S-Pen and 3GB of RAM. Everything is exactly the same as Galaxy Note 2014 series. P905 is just a P605 but only with a… surprise… huge screen, 12.2 inch screen. While some would believe that this is way too big, let us remind you that this is exactly what people thought when Samsung first released its phablet Note series and now Notes are sold way better than everyone predicted… so there may be a bright future in store for those 12.2 tablets.

Since P905 is bigger than P605, it comes with a bigger battery as well, a 9500mAh battery. Samsung has finally gave up on its 16GB versions. P905 is found only in two versions, 32GB and 64GB.

The Pro series come with KitKat 4.4.2 out of the box which is a good thing because not only you won’t have to wait for the update but the tablet is factory optimized to operate at its best with KitKat and not draw too much battery.

Another new feature of the Note Pro tablets is the keyboard which is somewhat similar to a desktop computer’s keyboard.

Everything else is exactly the same with P605, including the fake leather back finish. We didn’t had P900 for testing but according to its specs, it should be exactly the same with P600 but only with a slightly bigger screen 12.2 inch vs 10.1 inch.

Overall P905 is a very powerful tablet along with P605. There are no pros or cons to either of them, in the end it all comes down to how big you want your tablet, 10.1 inch or 12.2 inch.

Our P905 scored 34217 points in AnTuTu Benchmark which surprisingly was well below king P605 even though it carries the same chipset, same RAM, same CPU, same GPU, same screen resolution, same everything…

Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Quick Review

Yes, it’s total madness… just one month later (in April 2014) Samsung launched yet another tablet series. Galaxy Tab 4 continues the Galaxy Tab 3 series, making them a low-budget series. These tablets come in various sizes, from 7 inch to 8 inch and even 10.1 inch.

Just like the Galaxy Tab Pro series, all of these tablets do not have an S-Pen and their Menu key has been replaced with the Task Manager key. They are equipped with only 1.5GB RAM, weak 3.2MP cameras, and poor 1280×800 resolutions. All Galaxy Tab 4 tablets have Android KitKat 4.4.2 installed which is a good thing and the 10.1 inch series have 6800mAh batteries.

There isn’t much to say about these tablets… frankly speaking, considering their price, you should probably pay $100 more and get a P600 which is the cheapest out of all Galaxy Note 2014 series.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S Preview

New Galaxy Tab S 10.5 T800 next to a Note Pro 12.2

Samsung has announced a new series yet again. WOW! So many Samsung tablet series in the past 6 or so months… Just like Galaxy Note Pro 12.2, Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 wants to challenge the typical 10.1 inch screen yet again by adding a small 0.4 inch to its screen size. Considering that this is a Tab series and not a Note series, we believe that it’s safe to assume it won’t have an S-Pen.

Even though officially there isn’t much information about Galaxy Tab S, we did manage to gather some reliable details about the this series. From various sources, it is said that the Galaxy Tab S will have an AMOLED screen, unlike 2014, Pro and Tab 4 which all use IPS LCD screens. Tab S’s AMOLED screen has a resolution of 2560×1600 (same as Galaxy Note 2014 and Galaxy Pro), 3GB RAM and an Exynos 5420 comprised of four 1.9 GHz Cortex-A5s and four 1.3 GHz Cortex-A7 and a 533MHz ARM Mali-T628 GPU.

The back of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 takes after the Galaxy S5 smartphone flagship, employing the perforated leather look. Previous Samsung slates kept close to the Galaxy Note 3 with plain leather mimicking backs.

The primary camera on the slate will have an 8MP sensor, while the front-facer will be a 2.1 MP unit. Connectivity options are as wide as they come – Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, GPS/GLONASS, and LTE join the IR blaster.

Unfortunately, continuing Samsung’s new trend, Galaxy Tab S also replaced its Menu key with a Task Manager key. Unfortunately one more time… Samsung Galaxy Tab S tablets will also have fingerprint sensors so the US NSA can better identify and spy on you.

This new series brings NOTHING new to the already existing Note 2014 P605 and Note Pro P905. Samsung Galaxy Tab S T800 will cost around 564 Euros which is quite expensive and considering that this is the SIMless version and that it’s significantly more expensive than P600, this is not worth it. Not even its AMOLED could be consider a new addition to Samsung’s tablets because IPS LCD displays are already just as high-quality as AMOLED displays.

It’s not really known what T805 will bring but it is highly possible that this tablet will be equipped with the good old Snapdragon 800 or maybe even its newer sibling, Snapdragon 801…

All Galaxy Tab S tablets will also have KitKat 4.4.2 installed and this new series is expected to launch in June 2014.

Extend battery life on your Samsung Tablet and other Tricks

We have a trick in store for you. Do you want even longer battery life on your Samsung tablet?

Go to Settings > General > Application Manager > ALL and Turn off the following apps for better battery life: Backup, Businessweek+ ChatON, NYTimes, S Voice, Samsung Push Service, Story Album, Twitter. Doing this will increase your battery life by at least 15%. Our tests reveal that you could even double your battery life with these things disabled. Of course!!! Needless to say, don’t disable apps that you need… like Twitter for example, if you use it, don’t turn it off! However it is strongly advised that you should at least permanently forget about Businessweek+, NYTimes and especially Samsung Push Service. These 3 apps will kill most your battery life and we bet that you could get the most out of your tablet just fine without ever even touching these 3 annoying apps. So just forget about them, permanently turn them off.

A further battery extension for Galaxy Note 2014 would be to update to KitKat 4.4.2 as soon as it becomes available for your CSC. Again, do not rush to reflash with Odin because this can void your warranty. Better wait a one or two months more for the official update on your CSC. Updating to KitKat is advisable to Galaxy Note 2014 series only because the other tablets reviewed in this article already come with KitKat installed.

An additional trick to safeguard your tablet would be to buy a anti-glare or a crystal clean/clear screen protector and a Samsung original Flip Case or any type of flip/wallet case. Just a few years ago Samsung didn’t bother to sell screen protectors but these days they make their own screen protectors and they are great! High quality, cheap and inside the package there’s a dust removal sticker, a hard high quality squeegee for bubble removal and the best micro fiber cleaner we’ve ever seen! You should keep this micro fiber cleaner for future use, do not throw it away because you won’t find anything better than this even if you try at your local eyeglasses store. If your micro fiber cloth becomes too dirty, just wash it with water and soap but don’t throw it away.

For additional screen protection to your tablet and for longer use of your screen protector, after you apply your protector, do not peel off your Stage 2 which uncovers your actual protector. You will have a double protection with 2 layers of protectors without actually using 2 protectors. Just remove the side paper sicker which says “Step 2 Remove” or something but don’t remove the film. In time, when your protector becomes too scratched, remove the top film (the one that used to be Step 2) and voila you now have your actual protector which was meant to be there all by itself in the first place. Prolonged and double protection at the same price! Nice!

Conclusion

P600 is a very fast and powerful tablet but if you are willing to spend $500 on it, you should consider adding $50 or $100 more and aim for the king P605 which is a lot better. P905 is just as a king as P605 but not everybody prefers a 12.2 tablet. If you do however want a bigger tablet than search no more because this is exactly what you need. Just don’t forget to buy the 32GB or even the 64GB storage versions. Simply ignore the 16GB versions as if they don’t even exist because the price difference is so small, their own existence is not even explainable… In fact, we were able to find the 32GB version at lower prices than the 16GB versions. Crazy!? Right?

P605 and P905 are simply the best possible options! They have no real competition, not even iPads can compete with these beasts, they are simply the best tablets on the market so you should buy one of them if you are willing to spend that much money!

Tab 4 is an interesting low-budget tablet, yet it’s not really THAT cheap! With the money you would spend on Tab 4, you could buy 2 or even 3 Chinese Rockchip-based tablets with the exact same specs. So they are not really worth the money as of now but if the price significantly drops then they could become true options in favor of Chinese Rockchips.

As of now we can easily declare that the Galaxy Tab S will not even be worth considering, let along buying. All we could say about Tab S is that they should be complete failures. Expensive and dumb, brings absolutely nothing new to the series, besides more lack of privacy and the ability of the NSA and third-party apps to better spy on you and get their filthy hands on your fingerprints.

The only 3 minuses that we could name in these Samsung tablets are their lack of NFC, Radio FM and that they are not water-proof like Sony Xperia Z2 LTE tablet which could have been the king instead of P605 but its main disadvantage is the tiny 16GB memory storage. Needless to remind those who read our articles thoroughly, storage memory is extremely important on an Android tablet because you can not install apps on your external microSD card and when compared to Apple iPad Air’s 128GB storage memory, even P905’s 64GB version is small.

In closing we can say that Samsung is determined in dethroning Apple in the tablet market, offering both cheap (Tab 4) series and expensive high-specs tablets such as the 2014 series and the Pro series.